


new beginnings

by waveydnp



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: 2010 Phan, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 21:46:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17394269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveydnp/pseuds/waveydnp
Summary: dan gets an acceptance letter from manchester university





	new beginnings

“I got in.”

“Hello to you too,” Phil says, walking up the stairs to his room so his whole family can’t listen in on his conversation. Knowing the way the two of them are it’s likely to be at least a couple of hours, so he might as well get comfortable.

“Phil, did you hear me?”

“Um, kind of not really. What?”

“Mate,” Dan says. “Listen.”

“Ok, ok hold on a sec.” He closes his bedroom door behind him and crawls up onto the bed. “Need to get situated.”

“Phil, I got a bloody unconditional acceptance to Manchester!” Dan exclaims.

“What, seriously?” Phil’s heart is suddenly thumping a quicker beat. “Oh my god.”

“Yes! They want me! Can you fucking believe it?”

“Yes I can! You’re brilliant, of course I can. But also I can’t! Because that means you’ll be here!”

“I know!” Dan shouts excitedly down the other end of the line. “We’re gonna live in the same city!”

Phil doesn’t even know what to say. “Oh my gosh,” is all the he comes up with.

Dan seems to wait for more. It’s quiet while Phil tries to process all the things flying around the inside of his head.

“Unless you don’t want that anymore?” Dan finally says.

“What, no. I do. Of course I do. I’m just like… I’m overwhelmed. I haven’t even talked to my parents yet.”

“About moving?” 

“Yeah.” Phil lies his head back against his pillow and looks up at the ceiling. It’d only been a few weeks ago that Dan was here and Phil was promising him they’d find a way to be together and now here it is, the opportunity fallen right into their laps.

And it really is the best opportunity, one that makes sense for the both of them. Manchester is a good school, with a good law program. And it’s close enough to home that it wouldn’t feel all that scary for Phil to move there. He knows his way around Manchester and he could pretty much visit his parents whenever he wanted. 

“Are you not into the idea anymore?” Dan asks.

“No, Dan. Stop. I am. I just… it’s like, a lot. I’d… I reckon I’ll have to start looking for a proper job.”

“You have a proper job.”

Phil contains the sigh that wants to escape his lips. They’ve had this conversation countless times lately, going back and forth with Phil playing the role of reluctant realist and Dan never swaying in his optimism that YouTube is what Phil is meant to be doing.

It’s where Phil _wants _to be for sure, but he’s not sure that’s actually enough. His parents don’t seem to think it is, and they’ve lived a lot more years on this earth than he has after all.__

__“I don’t make enough to afford a flat of my own in the city,” Phil reminds him. “I’d have to get a flatmate.”_ _

__Dan makes a displeased, frustrated noise. “Thought the whole point was to finally get our own space.”_ _

__“I mean, yeah. It is. But still, being in the same city is better than a three hour train ride, yeah?”_ _

__“I thought you’d be excited.”_ _

__Phil scrunches up his face and smacks his palm to his forehead. “I am, Dan. I really really am.”_ _

__“Doesn’t seem like it.”_ _

__“I think I’m scared,” Phil admits._ _

__“That we’re moving too fast?” Dan asks._ _

__Phil’s answer is emphatic. “No! It’s not about you. Not at all. You know I’m like, stupid about you.”_ _

__Dan is quiet before he answers and Phil hopes against hope it’s because he’s smiling._ _

__“Oh yeah?” Dan asks after a moment._ _

__Phil is smiling. “Yeah. Definitely.”_ _

__“Why don’t you tell me a little about that?”_ _

__Phil chuckles, rolling over to push his face into his pillow. “You make my insides feel funny.”_ _

__“Yeah, you do too,” Dan says. “In my pants.”_ _

__“Dan!”_ _

__“What? It’s true.”_ _

__“I know, but… shush,” Phil says sheepishly. It’s far too early in their evening for their conversation to turn sexy. And preferably when it does they’ll switch to skype so he gets a look at the good stuff._ _

__“You’re cute when you’re pretending you’re not a raging pervert,” Dan teases._ _

__“I’m not pretending,” Phil protests. “I’m innocent and pure as… snow.”_ _

__“Yep. Totally. You definitely don’t have a secret box full of condoms and flavoured lube under your bed.”_ _

__“Shut up.”_ _

__“You definitely haven’t gotten your hands on me in every single room in that creepy Shining house,” Dan continues._ _

__“I haven’t!”_ _

__“Not yet,” Dan says cheekily. “But we’ve only got a few left to cross of the list.”_ _

__“We are absolutely never having sex in my parents’ bed, Daniel. It’s not happening.”_ _

__“We’ll see.”_ _

__“For the record, I hate you,” Phil says, willing himself not to visualize the time he’d stood behind Dan in the kitchen and reached into his pajamas from the back to get him off right then and there._ _

__“Is that why you don’t want to move to Manchester?”_ _

__Phil’s stomach sinks. “I do want to. I’m _going_ to.” He wishes it didn’t sound so much like he’s trying to convince himself._ _

__“But you’re afraid.”_ _

__Phil sighs, very quietly, less exasperation and more just the inability to really put the right words to how he’s feeling. “I’m afraid.”_ _

__“Why?” Dan asks._ _

__“Because. Because… right now I feel like I’m kind of like… in limbo or something. It’s like… I can’t fail right now, because I’m not trying. But if I move out and get my own place I’ll actively be trying and that means—”_ _

__“Phil.”_ _

__“What?”_ _

__“How are you not trying now?” Dan asks._ _

__Phil shrugs. “I’m just making videos. And hanging out.”_ _

__“What about that is not trying?”_ _

__“I don’t have to pay rent,” Phil says. “I don’t have to cook my own meals or wash my own laundry or any of it. I don’t _need_ money. My parents are basically still looking after me.”_ _

__“You were at York for like four years,” Dan reminds him._ _

__“Yeah. I dunno.” He burrows down under his covers a little deeper and pulls them up to his chin. “That felt different I guess. School feels like this weird middle ground between being a kid and having to grow up. I guess maybe I still feel like I’m living in the middle.”_ _

__“Yeah, same,” Dan says. “Only I really hate it. I want out as soon as bloody possible.”_ _

__“You’ll still be in it,” Phil reminds him._ _

__“Sort of I guess. But I’ll have to take out loans and maybe get a job. That feels grown up. Plus I’ll be able to visit my cool older boyfriend’s flat whenever I want,” he purrs. “That feels pretty fucking grown up to me.”_ _

__Phil chuckles like Dan is ridiculous, but it makes his chest tingle with something warm to hear Dan say stuff like that. “You think I’m cool?”_ _

__“Oh shut up, idiot,” Dan says. Phil can picture perfectly what his face would like when he says it. “You know I think you’re cool. And I wish you wouldn’t act like making videos is nothing.”_ _

__“Sorry,” Phil murmurs. “I don’t think it’s nothing. It’s just hard not to internalize what my parents think about it sometimes, you know? They think it’s just a hobby, which… I guess that’s fair enough. Technically it is. That’s how it started anyway. But they’re always on me to find a ‘proper job in my field.’”_ _

__“Yeah,” Dan says quietly. Sympathetically. “Parents are shite sometimes. Even ones as nice as yours.”_ _

__“What would that even be, though?” Phil asks. “Like what would a job in my field be? I hadn’t even given it that much thought before to be honest, I just thought linguistics sounded cool.”_ _

__“I mean, it is. And the video editing stuff is even cooler. I reckon there’s lots you could do with that.”_ _

__Phil rolls his eyes. “Yeah. Right. I’m the next Steven Spielberg.”_ _

__“Steven Spielberg is a director not an editor, dickhead,” Dan says sternly. “Just because your videos get watched on YouTube and not in a cinema doesn’t make them less… whatever.”_ _

__Phil sighs, this time maybe a little exasperated, but not with Dan. Just with the situation, and himself for not just being bold and brave like Dan is. Dan isn’t shitting himself over the idea of moving away from home and starting his own life, in fact it seems like he couldn’t be more ready._ _

__“Yeah,” Phil says noncommittally._ _

__“Lemme ask you something,” Dan says._ _

__“Ok.”_ _

__“Just think about this. If you could do absolutely anything, what would it be?”_ _

__“Be with you,” Phil says immediately._ _

__“That’s a given,” Dan says warmly. “That’s going to happen no matter what. I’ll follow you anywhere, Lester. You’ve got a stalker for life in me.”_ _

__Phil smiles. “Good.”_ _

__“But what else?” Dan asks. “What d’you wanna be when you grow up?”_ _

__Phil snorts but Dan continues. “What do you reckon would make you happy?”_ _

__“I don’t know,” Phil says honestly. “That feels like too much responsibility. I just want to make videos right now.”_ _

__“Well that’s kind of the answer, then, isn’t it?”_ _

__“Since when are you all wise and mature?” Phil asks._ _

__“I’m not,” Dan says. “I’m just trying to get you into your own flat so I can eat all your food and jump you whenever I want.”_ _

__Phil laughs, a little bit of weight just melting off his shoulders. “God. I want that too.”_ _

__“We’ll make it happen,” Dan says, and he sounds so sure that it’s comforting, even though Phil knows logically that Dan doesn’t know anything more than he does, in fact he probably knows less, especially about the challenges of moving away from home and living on one’s own. “Even if we both have to get jobs at like, Starbucks or something.”_ _

__“That doesn’t even sound half bad,” Phil says. “I love Starbucks.”_ _

__“I know. You took me there on our first date.”_ _

__“Was that a date?” Phil asks. “Do you consider that a date?”_ _

__“I guess retroactively I do. It felt like a date, didn’t it?” Dan asks. “I was nervous like it was a date. And we did some pretty romantic shit.”_ _

__“We did,” Phil murmurs, smiling to himself at the memory. Caramel macchiatos and Starbucks sofas and ferris wheel kisses and tipsy skybar conversations… it was a date, the best date Phil’s ever had. “I think I did good that day.”_ _

__“You do good every day,” Dan murmurs back. “And soon enough we’ll be back there and I’ll never have to get on a train and leave.”_ _

__“I’m gonna tell my parents,” Phil blurts. “Tomorrow.”_ _

__“That you wanna find a flat in Manchester?”_ _

__“Yeah. And I’m gonna start looking. Soon. Hopefully they’ll help but I’ll figure it out either way.”_ _

__“I’ll help,” Dan offers. He sounds so happy and dreamy Phil could cry._ _

__“Yeah?”_ _

__“Course,” Dan says. “I’m gonna be there all the time, gotta make sure it’s up to my standards.”_ _

__Phil chuckles. “And what are those, then?”_ _

__“Hmm… running water.”_ _

__“Mhm, good. That’s important,” Phil says._ _

__“And electricity. And wifi,” Dan says. “Preferably no mice but I’m flexible on that one as long as there’s a tv.”_ _

__Phil laughs. “Anything else?”_ _

__“A bed. And a Phil,” he says softly. “The Phil is the most important part.”_ _

__Phil falls quiet then. “I really wish you were here right now.”_ _

__“I always wish I was there.”_ _

__“I wish you weren’t about to go even further away,” Phil whispers. “India is too far.”_ _

__“I wish you were coming with me,” Dan says. His tone matches the longing in Phil._ _

__He debates not saying the next thing, afraid it might be too cheesy even for them, but he decides to say it anyway because cheesy is just the way Dan makes him feel. “I’m kind of gutted you’ll be gone on Valentine’s Day.”_ _

__“Really?” Dan asks._ _

__“I’ve never had one with someone before,” Phil mumbles. “Just would’ve been nice.”_ _

__“We’ll celebrate it when I get back,” Dan promises. “Should we have all the cheesy shit?”_ _

__“What like, flowers and chocolates and candles and stuff?” Phil says. “I reckon yes, we should. I’m gonna be dying by the time you get back. It’s already been a week and now I have to wait another two. I’ll drown you in cheesy shit to within an inch of your life.”_ _

__“Promise?” Dan asks._ _

__Phil nods, and then realizes Dan can’t see him. “I promise, yeah. The only kind of cheese I can tolerate is the kind where I love you.”_ _

__There’s a beat of nerves after he says it. It’s still so new. The fear that Dan won’t reciprocate is always there trying to trick Phil into thinking he’s being stupid for letting all cards show like this._ _

__But Dan says, “I love you too. And I love cheese. All the kinds.”_ _

__Phil laughs. “Noted.”_ _

__Then Dan says, “Oh, I think I hear— one sec.” The other end of the line goes quiet for a moment and then Dan’s voice is back. “My mum’s home. I’m gonna go tell her about uni.”_ _

__“You haven’t told her yet?” Phil asks._ _

__“Nope, there’s no one I wanted to tell before you.”_ _

__His grin threatens to break his face right in half. “Ok, go, go. Tell Karen you’re moving to Manchester.” He takes a deep breath and adds. “And I’m gonna go tell mine the same.”_ _


End file.
